Rachel Roumeliotis
Rachel Roumeliotis, a Strategic Content Director at O'Reilly Media, Inc., leads an editorial team that covers a wide variety of programming topics ranging from full-stack, to open source in the enterprise, to emerging programming languages. She is a Programming Chair of OSCON and O'Reilly's Software Architecture Conference. She has been working in technical publishing for 10 years, acquiring content in many areas including mobile programming, UX, computer security, and AI.
Appcelerator Titanium helps you generate native mobile apps
The author of Appcelerator Titanium: Up and Running describes how Titanium can be used to generate native mobile apps from JavaScript code. He distinguishes the Titanium platform from native API programming and from other popular JavaScript platforms for mobile devices. We look at the way Titanium exploits the expressiveness and flexibility of JavaScript, and some of the directions that the Appcelerator company is taking Titanium.
The R Programming Language
Garrett Grolemund, author of the forthcoming “Data Analysis with R” discusses the benefits of using a programming language like R, instead of traditional data analysis software, for data analysis.
Emerging languages spotlight: Elm – Programming Podcast
The Elm Programming Language, created by Evan Czaplicki, tackles web interaction and takes on the big three — HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Czaplicki to talk about why he decided to take on this daunting project and how Elm could revolutionize web programming.
Emerging languages spotlight: Elm
Evan Czaplicki on breaking the HTML-CSS-JavaScript blockade with functional reactive programming.
Over the next few months I’ll be taking a look at new and emerging programming languages. The following piece is the first in this series.
The Elm Programming Language, created by Evan Czaplicki, tackles web interaction and takes on the big three — HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Czaplicki to talk about why he decided to take on this daunting project and how Elm could revolutionize web programming.
Czaplicki was working on a front-end web project and he was thinking about how is it that web development can be “so frustrating in a way it didn’t have to be.” That was the day Elm was born (he talks about that moment in this segment of our video interview).
Today’s websites bear virtually no resemblance to those from 10 years ago, so why are we using the same tools? Cyclical upgrades to HTML, CSS and JavaScript have certainly enhanced and improved upon older versions. HTML5 has taken some great leaps forward. But we’re still using the core.
Coming from a functional programming background led Czaplicki to think about web programming from the perspective of functional reactive programming. What is functional reactive programming? It takes away the idea that interaction between a website and user is static — updating only at certain moments or clicks — and inserts the capability to update as events happen, like mouse movements. Czaplicki gives more detailed insight here. Read more…
Checking in on Python
Guido Van Rossum on the state of Python and the two services that are helping to push it forward.
Guido van Rossum is the creator of Python. I recently had the opportunity to talk with him about the state of the language.
You probably don’t realize it, but Python’s capabilities are pushed every time you use YouTube and Dropbox. During our interview, Van Rossum said both of these services are at the forefront of Python’s development.
“Whenever someone clicks on a [YouTube] video, they will see HTML that was generated from Python,” he said. “That’s definitely pushing the limits.” [Discussed 27 seconds in — you can see the scalability presentation that Van Rossum mentions during this segment here.]
On the Dropbox side, Van Rossum said the service’s clients for Linux, Windows and Mac are all implemented in Python. You’re also downloading a miniature version of the Python runtime when you’re using Dropbox. [Noted at 1:20.]
Van Rossum also spoke about the lengthy transition Python has undergone from Python 2 to Python 3. “If you want improvements to your Python … now is the time to start trying out Python 3.” Why? While the changes to the language are actually quite small, with the exception of unicode handling being completely overhauled, Python 3 is a better, faster version of Python. In addition, many third parties like Django are coming on line with libraries and frameworks for Python 3. [Discussed at the 7:01 mark.]
Why we need Go
Rob Pike on how Go fits into today's computing environment
The Go programming language was created by Rob Pike, Ken Thompson, and Robert Griesemer. Pike (@rob_pike) recently told me that Go was born while they were waiting a long while for some code to compile — too long.
C++ and Java have long been the go-to languages for big server or system programs, but they were created almost 30 and 20 years ago, respectively. They don’t address very well the issues programmers see today like use of concurrency and incorporating big data and they’re not optimal for the current programming environment.
One main reason that Go will succeed is how it deals with concurrency. It outpaces Java and C++ as well as Python, Ruby, and all the other scripting languages. It simply provides a better model, with Java a close second, that is able to work within the computing environment into which it was born.
During a recent interview, Pike elaborated on the need for Go and where it fits in today’s programming landscape. Highlights from our discussion include: Read more…
PowerShell for developers
Doug Finke on why PowerShell isn't just for administrators.
Doug Finke (@dfinke) is an O’Reilly author and software developer. He moderates a PowerShell for Developers forum at powershell.org.
We sat down recently to talk about the PowerShell, which has a new version launching with Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, and how it has grown with this latest release.
Key points from the full video interview include:
- New to PowerShell v3: Workflows and many, many more cmdlets [Discussed at the 0:39 mark]
- Streamline larger programs by incorporating PowerShell [Discussed at the 2:15 mark]
- Automation equals repeatability [Discussed at the 3:40 mark]
- PowerShell has a passionate community [Discussed at the 5:41 mark]
- What does the future hold for PowerShell? [Discussed at the 7:16 mark]
You can view the entire interview in the following video.
ASP.NET web API rocks – Programming Podcast
Glenn Block (@gblock) is an O’Reilly author and senior program manager on the Windows Azure Team at Microsoft. We sat down recently to talk about the newly released, which he helped develop, and why it will become essential to building RESTful applications.
ASP.NET web API rocks
Why the ASP.NET Web API Framework is an essential tool for RESTful applications.
Glenn Block (@gblock) is an O’Reilly author and senior program manager on the Windows Azure Team at Microsoft.
We sat down recently to talk about the newly released ASP.NET Web API Framework, which he helped develop, and why it will become essential to building RESTful applications.
Key points from the full video (below) interview include:
- ASP.NET Web API enables a rich set of clients to consume info [Discussed at the 1:47 mark]
- Find out if one comes out on top – MVC vs. Web API [Discussed at the 2:41 mark]
- Different clients negotiate content differently – Web API handles this with ease [Discussed at the 5:50 mark]
- Self hosting is a big deal but beyond that Web API introduces flexibility – you no longer need to use IIS [Discussed at the 9:04 mark]
- An HTTP Programming Model for Microsoft [Discussed at the 11:04 mark]
- The newest of the new – Hypermedia, OData, and Web API Contrib [Discussed at the 18:08 mark]
You can view the entire interview in the following video.